Tag: subsidiary

Aedas, Neinor & Merlin Properties Put €1bn on the Table for Sabadell’s Land

29 January 2019 – OK Diario

Banco Sabadell has now opened the sales process for Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, its real estate developer, for which the entity expects to obtain €1 billion. To date, the entity chaired by Josep Oliu has already sent the teaser to almost 30 interested parties. But there has been an important development, and that is that it is not only the typical funds that tend to participate in these types of auctions that are interested in the company, property developers are also keen, including Neinor, Aedas and Merlin Properties.

It is worth remembering that when Sabadell decided to sell Solvia, it separated the house-sale business and the real estate development business into two different companies with the aim of achieving a better offer. The land, which is owned by the second firm, forms part of the bank’s balance sheet and that is what is now up for sale.

According to sources speaking to OK Diario, the deadline for non-binding offers will finish in March; it will be after that when Banco Sabadell will start to receive binding offers. Sources in the know indicate that the operation will be closed in the second quarter. And, moreover, in addition to the aforementioned property developers, funds such as Cerberus, De Shaw, Blackstone, Värde, Apollo and Oaktree have also received the teaser (…).

The main plots of land owned by Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios are in Madrid, Barcelona and several places along the Mediterranean Coast. The portfolio includes plots that the buyer will have to reclassify in order to be able to sell, resell or transform them, as well as plots that are ready for development. It is precisely in those assets that so many property developers have expressed their interest.

Banco Sabadell obtained a profit of €138 million from the sale of 80% of Solvia, its real estate subsidiary, to Lindorff, a company that belongs to the Intrum AB group, for €300 million. With that operation, Sabadell, which has retained ownership of the remaining 20% stake in Solvia, achieved a positive impact on its Common Equity Tier 1 (“fully loaded”) capital ratio of 15 basis points.

The completion of that operation, which is subject to obtaining the corresponding authorisations, is also scheduled for the second quarter of 2019 (…).

Original story: OK Diario (by Borja Jiménez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Inditex to Build a Logistics Centre Next to Mercadona’s in Parc Sagunt

14 December 2018 – Valencia Plaza

The company behind the offer received by the Valencia Port Authority (APV) to purchase a plot of land measuring 280,000 m2 in Parc Sagunt is Tempe. That firm, a subsidiary of the textile group Inditex that has its headquarters in Elche, is planning to build one of its centres on the plot that is located right next to the 350,000 m2 plot on which Mercadona has already started work to build its largest logistics block in Spain.

The APV announced this week that it had received, through its subsidiary Valencia Plataforma Intermodal (VPI), a purchase proposal for that plot, although it did not reveal the amount of the bid or the identity of the candidate. The Board of Directors of VPI considered the bid to be “in the port’s interest” because the project presented fulfils the requirements in terms of the movement of goods through the Port of Sagunto, which VPI included in the public tender convened previously for the sale of this plot.

The company has opened a period of 30 calendar days to give other applicants the option to submit alternative offers, and so if that does not happen before 11 January, them the land will be awarded to the footwear subsidiary of the textile group founded by Amancio Ortega (…).

The 280,000 m2 plot, which VPI was awarded at the time for €30 million is currently worth €25 million, but the entity has already recognised a provision in its accounts for the adjustment in the value of the land. In the tender documents, the company established a minimum price of €30.7 million plus €300,000 for notary fees, payable in cash (…).

Tempe is the Inditex subsidiary that specialises in footwear and accessories for the eight chains that belong to the group: Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe. It is responsible for the design, sale and distribution of those products. Its headquarters are in Elche, one of the main manufacturing nuclei in Spain, and occupy 200,000 m2. From there, it distributes 100 million units around the world each year.

In 2017, Tempe broke sales records once again by registering a turnover of €1.246 billion, according to its accounts for the year. The company is owned by Inditex (50%) and the businessman Vicente García Torres. Its profit amounted to €81 million and Inditex received €21 million in dividends from the company.

Logistics is one of the fundamental areas of Inditex’s business. In total, 8,565 workers are dedicated to it, equivalent to 5% of its employees. The distribution of clothes, footwear, accessories and household goods of all of its chains is carried out from fourteen logistics centres located across Spain (…).

Original story: Valencia Plaza (by Xavi Moret)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Plans are Afoot to Refloat Marbella’s Former Incosol as a Hotel

26 November 2018 – Diario Sur

It is one of Marbella’s historical tourism buildings, it has been closed since 2013, and for years the most famous of the famous passed through its doors. It is the Incosol. Now, five years after it definitively closed its doors when its last owners filed for creditor bankruptcy, something is starting to move in the great establishment, located to the East of the town and surrounded by gardens and unbeatable views.

According to information obtained by this newspaper, Hotel Value Added Primera, linked to the subsidiary that the Sabadell Group used to acquire the building in 2017, is studying the feasibility of refloating the property as a hotel. For that, it has made contact with the local Administration to consider, in the first instance, the possibilities that the plans would have from an urban planning point of view. In theory, the plans involve a hotel project without the healthcare features that the iconic Incosol used to offer.

Although no specific plans have been presented to the Town Hall yet, the Urban Planning department has started to evaluate the investors’ proposals. From the outset, the exclusive hotel use would require a modification of the elements of the General Urban Plan (PGOU) in force, that of 1986. For the time being, the case is being studied technically.

The sources consulted by this newspaper underline that the urban development plan reflects that this land “would not form part of the municipality’s healthcare model”, which would open the door to the proposed change. In any case, and with the aim of understanding the feasibility of the idea presented to the Municipal Administration, the investors are not taking any risks and have resorted to those who best know the urban development plan in force, namely, the team that drafted the PGOU of 1986.

Since the hotel’s closure in 2012, and after many incarnations in the courts, last year, it was the Sabadell Group, through its real estate subsidiary, who took ownership of the property and the brand. Just a few weeks ago, the doors of the old hotel were opened again to clear the facilities of all of the furniture and furnishings that had been left intact since its closure and which have now been donated to Cáritas (…).

The legendary spa of the jet set of the 1970s and 1980s in Marbella (through whose doors passed Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, Rainiero of Mónaco and Camilo José Cela, amongst others) closed in 2013, on one of the saddest days in its history, since it opened its doors in 1973. The failure led to a creditors bankruptcy (…). And after much to-ing and fro-ing, in the end, one of its creditors, Sabadell, acquired the establishment a year ago.

If the plans of the investor group interested in recovering the property – which are still in a very early phase – come to fruition, Marbella could include the mythical Incosol in its list of new luxury establishments after the upcoming arrival of the prestigious Four Seasons, the arrival of W Marbella and the re-opening of the former Don Miguel establishment, thus confirming the growing interest in investing in the city, especially to create new tourist infrastructure.

Original story: Diario Sur (by Mónica Pérez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Zurich Buys an Office Building in Plaza Cataluña from Sum Capital Spain

25 October 2018 – Eje Prime

The Zurich Group has assured itself of a space in the heart of Barcelona. The Swiss group has purchased an office building in Plaza Cataluña from Sum Capital Spain, the property developer behind OneCowork, a chain of co-working offices that will remain as the tenant of the property, according to explanations provided to Eje Prime by sources close to the operation, whose consideration has not been revealed.

The asset, located at number 9 Calle Estruc, between Plaza Cataluña and Portal de l’Àngel, has a surface area of 1,648 m2. The property is distributed over five storeys with a terrace (and an average surface area of 250 m2 per floor). It will be completely occupied by the coworking chain created by Uri Nachoom, the sole administrator of Sum Capital Spain.

Nachoom is a familiar face in the Catalan capital’s real estate sector as the former co-owner of the Salamanca Group holding company, the firm that relaunched the Marina Port Vell marina and which guided the growth of OneCowork, a company that is going to invest €150 million in the opening of forty centres all over Europe by 2023.

Now, the Israeli businessman has decided to sell this property under the sale&leaseback method, taking advantage of the interest in the Spanish office market from large funds and insurance firms. The operation has been signed through REX Spain, one of the Zurich Group’s subsidiary companies, and has been advised by the real estate consultancy JLL (…).

It’s not all about the 22@ district in Barcelona 

The office market in Barcelona is not all about the 22@ district. Although the city’s technological hub accounts for most of the current investments, Zurich’s purchase of the OneCowork building highlights the interest that the city centre is continuing to generate. Other large players such as Hines, Emesa and Pontegadea have benefitted in recent months from the interest of some companies and startups to work in the heart of Barcelona.

At the beginning of October, WeWork leased two spaces in the centre of the Catalan capital (…).

Also, since May, the real estate company owned by Amancio Ortega, Pontegadea, has been the landlord of Lidl in its building in Plaza Cataluña, where the Zara flagship store is also located. In total, the German supermarket chain leases 3,155 m2, distributed over four storeys.

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo & B. Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

ASG Homes is Looking for Land in the North of Spain

24 October 2018 – Eje Prime

ASG Homes is raising its head and looking north in its growth plan for Spain. The property developer, a subsidiary of the German group ActivumSG, is analysing residential projects in cities such as Bilbao, San Sebastián, Santander and A Coruña. “We are opening ourselves up to other areas”, says Víctor Pérez Arias, CEO at ASG Homes speaking to Eje Prime. At the same time, ASG Homes is already thinking about launching its sixth fund next year, once it has fully invested the current one

The group’s fifth fund, which specialises in the residential segment in Spain and Germany, still has €200 million to invest, of the almost €500 million that it was created with. To date, the real estate manager has invested around €250 million through ASG Homes.

The objective of the company is to use up the funds during the first quarter of 2019. To this end, the property developer is accelerating its investments so that a dozen projects are ready to come out of the oven “in the very short term”.

Amongst the plans already underway, the firm is constructing and renovating buildings in Valencia, Sevilla, Alicante, Salamanca, Estepona (Málaga) and Alcalá de Henares. In total, a portfolio of seven projects, to which an eighth will soon be added in Marbella.

With more than half a million m2 of land located all over Spain, ASG Homes has the capacity to build up to 5,000 homes, of which more than 2,000 units are already being marketed. Nevertheless, the manager aspires to double the size of that portfolio to 10,000 homes and, in this sense, the property developer is looking to the north of the country, and to Valladolid.

One of the reasons for this open-mindedness is the “uncertainty in terms of the timings” that the fund is finding in several of the provincial capitals where it already has a presence, says Pérez Arias. “There are some cities where we have decided to not invest again because of the problems imposed by some of the public administrations”, complained the director.

The search for opportunities in the north forms part of phase 3 of the fund, as described by the company, which also involves scanning the first rings and outskirts of two of the large capitals where it already has a presence, Madrid and Sevilla. Barcelona does not form part of the roadmap for ASG Homes, which is only investing in large volume projects, for the time being. “We back developments with a minimum of 200 homes”, says Pérez Arias, who forecasts that the last key for the twenty or so developments that his firm is planning to build with its current vehicle will be handed over in 2022 (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Gazeley Purchases a 75,000 m2 Industrial Plot in Toledo

19 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Gazeley has returned to the Spanish market. The logistics warehouse and distribution park investor and developer group has acquired a 75,000 m2 plot in the Toledo town of Illescas on which it will build a 36,000 m2 warehouse. The company is planning to complete the project in 2019.

Moreover, the company has opened new offices in Madrid. Oscar Heras, Construction Director at Gazeley, will assume the role of Director of the subsidiary Gazeley España, which, until now, has stayed away from Spanish real estate activity after selling all of its assets in the country in 2016.

Then, the company was going through a bad time: it had accumulated more than 1.5 million m2 in more than a dozen platforms. Moreover, that same year, the Spanish subsidiary recorded a net profit of more than €16 million, which it used to offset losses from previous years, exceeding €11 million.

Now they are back, because, according to Heras, “it is a time when there is more demand for logistics warehouses than ever”. The company’s intention is to continue growing in Spain.

In Europe, Gazeley has a portfolio of assets spanning 17 million m2, concentrated in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands and leased (96%) to clients such as Amazon, UPS and Volkswagen. The company forms part of the GLP group, which is listed on the Singapore stock market, with more than $50 billion in assets under management.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA & Cerberus Name Their Real Estate Macro-Alliance ‘Divarian’

14 June 2018 – La Información

Cerberus and BBVA have put a name to their macro-alliance. The partners have chosen ‘Divarian’ as the name of the corporate entity into which they will deposit and through which they will manage the sale of the €13 billion gross in property proceeding from the bank. The logo mimics the images of the two partners given that it is blue in all its tones and shades.

The brand was registered by Promontoria Marina, the subsidiary of the US fund that will be used to close the transaction, in April in the Official Gazette of Industrial Property (Bopi), and BBVA has just extended it to two of its subsidiaries, renaming the asset holding company BBVA Propiedad as Divarian Propiedad, and the property developer Anida as Divarian Desarrollos Inmobiliarios. In the case of the latter, the change of name comes into force immediately given that instructions have already been given internally for it to be used in all operations signed from now on.

The recent name dance is fueling expectations that these two subsidiaries of BBVA will end up under the umbrella of a macro-holding company or, even, carrying out promotion activity, although that activity was covered by the US fund with the acquisition of the Burgos-based Inmoglacier. Owner of the property developer and servicer – Haya Real Estate – Cerberus will complete the real estate puzzle when it formalises the transaction with the bank because it will also become the owner of the assets.

BBVA, which had always moved against the tide of the financial sector when it came to the sale of businesses and subsidiaries, surprised everyone last year by putting the bulk of its property on the market. Cerberus was the successful buyer of the portfolio, and so it signed a deal to transfer €13 billion of the total €17.8 billion in gross exposure to a company in which the fund will control 80% and the bank will retain the remaining 20%. BBVA is following in the footsteps of Santander, which removed €30 billion gross (€10 billion net) from its balance sheet inherited from Popular, and transferred it to a subsidiary in which Blackstone purchased a 51% stake and Santander retained the remaining 49% (…).

Cerberus has focused on documenting and selecting assets with the intention of generating some plots of land for Inmoglacier, dedicating some assets to rent and, even, packaging up certain other properties likely to offer maximum returns into Socimis, and divesting the rest through portfolios or as independent units. The teams are working against the clock, with the support of staff from Anida who are working from Cerberus’s offices in Madrid, according to sources close to the process (…).

Original story: La Información (by Eva Contreras)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carrefour Property Manages 20% of Spain’s Retail Space

2 April 2018 – Eje Prime

Carrefour Property is continuing to expand its map of shopping centres in Spain. The real estate subsidiary of the French distribution group has started the second quarter of the year with a portfolio of retail space under management spanning more than 2.6 million m2. That figure represents 20% of the total surface area of shopping centres in Spain.

The long list of retail plots controlled by the subsidiary of the Carrefour giant has increased in recent months with the management of the following centres: Gran Vía de Hortaleza (Madrid), Puerta de Alicante, Augusta (Zaragoza) and La Verónica (Málaga) in recent months, according to a statement issued by the company.

In total, Carrefour Property España manages 110 centres throughout the country: 82 centrally and the remaining 28, all of which are large shopping centres, through specific teams at each site.

The company’s Director of Shopping Centres, Antonio Fidalgo, stressed that “the management of retail spaces is one of the most important areas of our business, given that we not only manage our own centres, we also manage centres owned by other companies such as Merlin Properties, Klépierre, Carmila, Grupo Lar and Pradera, amongst others”.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Pontegadea Segregates its RE Rental Activity in Spain

2 January 2017 – Eje Prime

Pontegadea, the real estate investment vehicle owned by Amancio Ortega (pictured below) is starting the year by reorganising its business. The company has segregated its property rental activity in Spain into the company Torre Norte España, now Pontegadea España, which has also increased its share capital by €100 million.

According to a statement published in the Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry (Borme) on Tuesday, the new real estate subsidiary will group together most of Ortega’s assets in Spain, worth more than €1.6 billion. The portfolio includes Torre Cepsa, designed by the architect Norman Foster.

Specifically, Pontegadea will own Pontegadea España as a subsidiary. The founder of Inditex will unify almost all of his real estate business in the Spanish market into that company.

In parallel to this asset reorganisation, the company Partler 2006, which sits under the umbrella of the Pontegadea group and which owns 9.284% of Inditex, has merged by absorption with RL30 Inversiones, owner of the building on Gran Vía, 32, which is home to one of the largest Primark stores in Europe.

The reorganisation of the Inditex founder’s real estate assets is a formal matter from a legal point of view with the aim of simplifying its structure that has been based on rapid growth, according to Europa Press.

Pontegadea Inmobiliaria already owns specific companies in the other countries in which it has a presence, such as in the USA, France, the UK and Korea, which group together the real estate activities of the founder of the textile giant in each case.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Victoria’s Secret & Armani To Open Stores In Plaza Río 2 Shopping Centre

16 October 2017 – Expansión

On Thursday 20 October, the luxury Italian brand Armani is going to open a new store in Madrid. However, the new establishment is not going to be located on one of the capital’s high-end streets, such as Serrano or Ortega y Gasset, but rather in a shopping centre: the new Plaza Río 2.

Located on the banks of the River Manzanares, the Plaza Río 2 shopping centre is the latest project from the French real estate giant La Société Générale Inmobilière (LSGI). With a total investment of almost €200 million, the company has managed to secure tenants for the entire retail space, which measures 38,931m2, out of a total surface area of 127,873 m2.

The new tenants include household name brands, including several belonging to the Inditex group, such as Massimo Dutti and Zara Home, as well as new faces in the shopping centre business in Spain.

Such is the case of the aforementioned Armani group, which will open an Armani Exchange store for the first time in Spain; Armani Exchange is the Italian group’s brand that targets a younger audience.

Meanwhile, the underwear firm Victoria’s Secret, famous for its annual catwalk show with supermodels, will also make its debut in a shopping centre in Madrid with a store in Plaza Río 2.

Until now, the firm, owned by the US group L Brands, has had a presence in two shopping centres in Barcelona, as well as in the airports of Málaga, El Prat and Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, in the cosmetics and accessories format. Just a few days ago, it opened its first high-street store in the Spanish capital, in premises measuring 150m2 on Calle Fuencarral, which will be joined by its new establishment in Plaza Río 2 next week.

Another first in the new shopping centre will be the H&M Home line. The Swedish firm has reserved a surface area of 3,000 m2, spread over three floors, where it will open a store that will offer its H&M Home household collection for the first time in the centre of Madrid.

Plaza Río 2 is the eighth shopping centre that LGSI has opened in Spain. Through its subsidiary LSGIE, the company has promoted well-known establishments such as Madrid 2 La Vaguada, one of the first shopping centres that ever opened in Spain. In addition to this latest new opening, the group plans to renovate and expand its different assets in the Spanish market, according to sources at LSGIE.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake